When Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus fled to Egypt shortly after his birth, they became refugees--a fact little remembered unless the refugee or immigrant experience strikes close to your heart. This year, a bilingual Spanish/English retelling of the nativity in Minneapolis celebrated the immigrant story with singing, parading down the streets, and, of course, puppets--courtesy of the Heart of the Beast Theater. I couldn't possibly describe it as well as La Natividad's author, Minneapolis pastor and poet friend Patrick Cabello Hansel; check out his description in his blog.
(picture from http://hobt.org/mainstage/La_Natividad/index.html)
Merry Christmas to All!
I remember, during a fit of frustration in a poetry course in college, thinking that I wanted to do an experiment: I'd show individuals the same poem as ask for their responses. Half of them, I would tell that it was an original work by a student. I'd tell the other half that it was a well known work by a very famous poet. I'd still like to see that experiment--I'd bet money that the people who were told the poem was already "good" would respond far more favorably.
They say Nabokov wrote down ideas for stories on little cards: an interesting character, a conflict, an image that struck his attention--whatever. And then when he wanted to write, he sat down and dealt himself a story.